To quit work and be SAHM

[Blueyrocks]

I work part time. DH works full time and earns more than twice what I do. He also has much better career progression opportunities than my job would have I think.

We have 3 kids, one still in nursery, no funded hours, 3 days/ week. Combined with wrap around care for the older two, this means that me working brings in about £300/ month, sometimes less if we've hit the tax-free limit for childcare.

I like my job. My colleagues are lovely and the work is mostly low stress and not dangerous or difficult, just a nice office job. And my baby will get funded hours in August, and then my work will contribute more like £1300 or even more per month to what we have as a family. We have a mortgage but no.other debts.

But life is very, very busy. There's no leeway. Eg if someone gets sick then whole system breaks down. We have no family support and I have PTSD, which can randomly flare up and throw everything off balance. My kids seem happy in school/ nursery/ after school clubs, but often are a bit hyper on their club days, and dinner can sometimes be pretty rubbish on those days - fish fingers, or instant noodles. Not always,but more often than I'd like. And the house is messy, and rarely as clean as I'd like.

DH doesn't mind whether I work or not. He says life would be easier if I didn't, and he'd be happier as less stress. But that it's up to me to decide if I'd be happier and he'll support whatever I decide.

Would i just feel like my whole life was drudgery and miss the office job, and wish for the money I'll be earning in less than a year - holidays, and decorating the house nicer, wouldn't be as easy with just one salary. Or would all of that matter less than the relief of DH earning the money and me taking care of the house, cooking, cleaning, shopping, school run, sick days etc.

Any advice please??

YABU - stay in your job
YANBU - quit

I would just be wary of thinking it will be easier to get back to work when DC are at school. I just about coped working with 3DC when they were tiny. Now we have 2 in primary and one in secondary. The amount of extra curricular activities they do, the length of the school holidays, the need to do homework every day with 3x children... I am completely burnt out now, feel on the edge of a breakdown every day. Eldest is likely ADHD and cant so much as get dressed without support. Would love to be a SAHM for a bit but all the arguments about setting a good example of working and keeping pension going put me off.

Maybe get signed off for a few weeks OP - whilst you make a plan? Don’t feel bad, your health is your priority. You don’t want to burn out even more. It’s hard to come back from that.

With regards to ‘setting a good example by working’. I was so stressed and shouty that this was completely negated.

My boys know I had a big career. They know I took time off to reset and at that time I could pick them from school and spend more time with them. Then they saw me retrain and start my own business.

So I don’t think taking some time
for your health and not working is setting a bad example (and I’m gonna be honest when they’re young they are not really paying attention to your careers!).

Hard to know op. I had a long spell at time but harder to get back to workplace then. My friend loves it but he high up in his job life easier with her home (kid in college). Hard know isnt it..

Don’t let anyone make you feel bad for giving your kids instant noodles etc at times. Most parents do, MN isn’t reflective of real life in some situations

I honestly think that taking time out to care for children (by either parent) sets an example to them of how to balance life and establish priorities. It is only a good thing if it can be afforded.

Yeah, I totally understand - DH and I aren't always setting a good example by working, as we're sometimes stressed and cross 😞That said, my sister doesn't work, and that's not an example I'd. Want to set for my kids either, even though she does have a fairly calm lifestyle. She has no partner or kids, so lives off my mother's support. But my older brother has a job and also 3 kids, but a lot of anger issues (I think prob PTSD as well). He tries his best and I don't want to criticise him, but I want a calmer life for my kids. l think he's great but I don't want that to be me. But I don't want to be my sister either!!!

But a few weeks off is maybe an option. I can't do it now, but maybe once I finish this big piece of work I have to do.

You sound like you're trying to make a major life decision while you're standing inside a burning building. You need to get out of the fire before you you can think straight.

My advice to you is to get signed off work. You have PTSD which is sufficient to go on long term sick, you also sound very stressed.

Use the income you have from sick pay to pay for private therapy. Find a Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist, make sure they've had their own analysis and have supervision. Use your therapy to address your PTSD; your feelings of guilt at taking sick leave for a very serious mental health condition; and also to talk through this decision.

Give yourself the time and space to become fully well and think about what you want.

YANBU in my opinion, but Mumsnet is generally very against anyone not working full time, as you can see from the responses!

I read this to DH and he laughed and said it was a great response! I will give it some thought - thank you.

I would normally want to make all the sensible points here about pension etc. and fully agree with those, but if your job is not particularly AI proof, could you use a period where instead of work you retrain for something that is better for your long term future, so you can make up for the lack of pension later. It also gives you something that is for you.

I would just say that I have seen people on the wrong end of this by not making those pension contributions and having to work so much harder later on when health declines, sometimes widowed or divorced, and you are in the elderly parent/teenager sandwich.

Also spouses can be OK without you working at the start, but the longer it continues the more they can feel the burden of being the financial provider. It seems to change the dynamic.

@GOODCAT Thank you for replying. These are all good points for me to consider. I have a pretty good pension already, for reasons unrelated to my job. And I won't be in an 'elderly parent/ teenager' sandwich, as we live abroad from both our mothers, and our fathers are both dead. DH is very far away from his mother, and I have a very limited relationship with my mother and have no intention whatsoever of caring for her in her old age.

AI proof - I have no idea! My guess is not, but who knows? My job does involve a lot of people-working/ relationships... ?

On DH resentment longer term, it's a good point to raise. I could imagine, if I was still a SAHM when our kids are teens and need less practical care from me, he might feel he has the rougher deal. But on the other hand, I think the early years have been hard for me in ways he hasn't experienced (though of course they've been hard for him too), so swings and roundabouts?

When I read your initial post, my first thought was about your pension - as I think a lot of people just think about the present day and don’t think about how they will fare in retirement. However, having read you have £400k already in your pension pot makes this less of an issue. Even if you don’t pay anything else in and just let it grow, I think you’ll end up with a healthier retirement fund than a lot of people who plan to work right through.

If I was you and dealing with all you’ve had to deal with and having the support of your DH, I would be very tempted to give being at home a try. Ultimately, the best choice isn’t always the one that makes the most financial sense but the one that will make your family the happiest. Obviously this is provided you aren’t being financially reckless - but this doesn’t sound like it applies here at all.

(And I do think all the more cautious advice you are getting is great. But - in your shoes - I think I’d be trying a spell as a SAHM).

You need to think of all possibilities and what happens if you take 10yrs out of work, your marriage breaks down and you’re no longer in a position where you have the luxury of being a SAHM. You would struggle to get a job with a decent salary when just returning to the workplace, not to mention stuff like pensions. I personally would never be a SAHM for many reasons, but keeping independence is vitally important as if the marriage breaks down, your DH would be just fine given he’s the main earner.

By the time you retire you'll have been working for fifty years. A few years out if you have the children fairly close together is neither here nor there. Friends had good enough pensions from the NHS to retire at 55.

Can you take a career break or similar for a year and see how it suits you first before quitting altogether?

Thank you all so much for all the advice and insights. DH and I talked through the question again last night with all the things raised here, which was so helpful.

I also realised that I wouldn't consider quitting until Christmas at the earliest as that would really screw my lovely colleagues, and would feel terrible quitting before the end of the financial year, which takes us so close to the funded childcare hours that it's hardly worth quitting until we get those and see how life feels with the extra money. If work doesn't let me change my hours to school hours & term time only, it may not feel worthwhile financially anyway, but all that we have to wait and see.

But meanwhile, a few weeks of sick leave does feel like a possibility. DH very much in favour. I feel kind of weepy or something at the thought. Not sure if it's feeling like a failure, or feeling like it's acknowledging the PTSD in a way I haven't before.

if thats your gut feeling and you can afford it, then do it! Weigh up the pros and cons. It seems like you enjoy your job….would you miss it if you left?
if you think you would be happier then you could trial it and always return to working later in life.

I appreciate you've now come to a decision to stay on and see how having the money turns out next summer… I just want to add some observations that all the way through, your posts have been very much that you want to be with your children and that life as it stands is to overwhelming - to the point that even the thought of having some short term respite is making you emotional.

the sick leave will give you time to see things clearly when you’re not chasing your tail but honestly, if you are looking for answers, you have them- for now you have clearly stated you want to stay at home to be with your kids and have some breathing space, this is what deep down I think you know is right for you, over and above any extra money.

it’s too hard to look into a crystal ball to think will you miss work, will it feel like drudgery.., but the great thing about life is that if it does you go back to work! From your description of having a job rather than career, it possibly wouldn’t be hard to find something again a year or two down the line if you wanted to?

I took time out to be a sahm but my kids were older - 10 and 12 and by that time I was completely burnt out and exhausted. My kids hadn’t had the best of me and I have so much guilt to have missed out on aspects of their childhood as mentally and physically I wasn’t always there and was constantly fire fighting my own mental health until it got to the point I couldn’t carry on. I worry that if you don’t deal with your PTSD now and carry on then it may all break apart in a few years and you will be picking yourself up from rock bottom. I expect it to be hard and scary taking the time to deal with your PTSD- it is easier absolutely to avoid and distract yourself by keeping busy as you are, but it may come back and bite you in the bum as it did with me.

the thing that got me in the end to let go, get some perspective and stop was someone said to me something along the lines of when you’re a wee wise old woman, what advice would she say? Looking back, Would she want you to keep pushing to your limits (when financially you can manage)?? What’s going to be more important to you when you look back on your life? Only you know if you will be truly happier with extra money/holidays to say if it is worth it. Kids are resilient and they will adapt to whatever is the status quo- this decision is down to you doing what’s right for you and your happiness.

nothing has to be forever and what’s for you won’t go by you (I’m back at work now and feeling much more balanced now in a better position all round). Life is short and if you feel the urge/ gut feeling to act now then I would listen to it. Good luck x

I wouldn’t give it up. You have the best of both worlds working part time.

I think what comes across in your posts OP is always putting other people first and worrying what others think. You’re worried about going off sick. You don’t want to let your colleagues down, your brother wouldn’t do this.

Really try to put yourself and your health first. It’s the most important thing. Good luck.

@Om83 thank you for this lovely post. I'm not sure we have come to a conscious decision tbh, just continuing to do nothing, which isn't really enough... Except maybe the sick leave though I'm not sure I quite believe myself when I say I'll think about it!!

I used to have a real wise old woman in my life and I know exactly what she would say.

And I'm at work now (waiting on my dying laptop to cooperate, which is why I'm also posting on Mumsnet), and yeah, I just want to be hanging out with my baby, weeding the garden, sorting laundry, preparing a healthy dinner for my family. Instead I'm doing a data gathering thing, and not even earning money for it!!

I just want to be hanging out with my baby, weeding the garden, sorting laundry, preparing a healthy dinner for my family.

Then DO IT !!!! Just FGS do it!

You speak as though these tasks are secondary - they are not. Caring for a family is a fundamental and vital task and if you enjoy doing it then just DO it!

You and your husband are a team and each of your contributions to earning money and keeping the home together will fluctuate over time and depending on the ages of the children - neither task is more important than the other. Earning money is one of the tasks and your OH is happy to take that one on for the time being while the children are small; and you are happy to take on the other side of things. Everyone will benefit from you being less stressed.

What is stopping you? Are you worried about what others might think? - then don't - just don't! Just stop it!

You get just one stab at this parenting lark so do what is right for your family.

I find it deeply depressing that people make their plans on the basis of possible marital breakdown and single parenthood - you are a team and it sounds as though you are a good one. Build on that for the benefit of all of you.

JUST DO IT !!!!!

It’s really hard now, but cling on. You’ve done brilliantly to keep working with three kids. Maybe drop another day. Better to retain your toe hold in the labour market and - crucially - your pension.

If you do decide to give up work make sure DH puts £500 at least a month in a private pension for you.

I’ve been both extremes, Sahm and a divorced full time working mum, I’m still glad I had the early years at home with the kids, I didn’t regret it, I got divorced as the kids got older and managed part time, then full time, things have a way of working out even if the worst happens, just do what you need to do for now, you can go back to work later.